Chapter Text
In the forgotten darkness beneath Saginomiya Island, some kind of archaic and sinister trouble was stirring. To tackle this problem, the islanders had turned to the Traveler, who had very nicely asked Zhongli to come along.
It hadn’t taken much to get him to agree. The subterranean depths did not seem so terrible when compared to Hu Tao’s latest marketing ploy, which involved Zhongli using his “dulcet voice” to encourage middle aged housewives to sign up for coffin payment plans.
Lumine had also leaned in and mentioned, with a knowing smirk, that she would be asking Childe to come along as well. As though that would have any impact on Zhongli’s decision. Childe hadn’t spoken to him or sought him out since that day in the Northland Bank, and was likely to return to Snezhnaya soon anyway. And while Zhongli had felt, from the very beginning, more fondness for Childe than was reasonable, he had upheld his end of the contract as promised.
The Traveler also brought along Xiangling, who was as handy with spear and flame as she was with a frying pan, and a young man from Mondstat who gave Zhongli an eager smile at their first meeting, then tripped and nearly fell as Xiangling came into sight.
They hadn’t had much of a chance to talk in the quick sojourn through Inazuma and the dizzying trip through the portal that took them down to Enkanomiya. They’d been briefed on the situation with the corrupted statues by a woman in a highly suspicious fox mask, and then Lumine and Paimon had been drawn into some highly competitive Inazuman card game with the soldiers still well enough to play. From his place out by the railing at the edge of the massive stone structure, Zhongli could hear them shouting and laughing.
He was glad Lumine was able to bring some levity to their hopeless endeavor. She clearly had some history with Saginomiya’s army, and seemed to be well liked.
They’d set up camp at the base of the Dainichi Mikoshi, near the contingent of Saginomiya soldiers who were recovering from their foray into the corrupted darkness. While the others were occupied—Lumine with the soldiers, Bennett with setting up camp, and Xiangling with preparations for dinner—Zhongli took the opportunity to wander off, examining the alien flora with fascination. Many of the plants glowed an unnatural silver or pale white, and their flowers and leaves took on bizarre and lovely shapes.
At the back of the Dainichi Mikoshi, where it was something approaching dark, he caught sight of Childe standing alone, looking out into the blackness. His hair glowed like a torch where the harsh light of the Dainichi Mikoshi caught it, and he stood with a soldier’s posture, legs apart, shoulders back, hands open and at the ready. Two ancient weapons were thrust into the ground beside him, crumbling and cracking at the very edges.
“This is a fascinating place, isn’t it?” Zhongli asked, coming to join him.
Childe hummed in agreement, his blue eyes as dull and lifeless as a desolate tundra.
“We haven’t had much of a chance to talk,” Zhongli began.
“The nice thing about coming home,” Childe said, “is it reminds you who you really are.”
“Coming home?” Zhongli wasn’t sure he understood.
Childe turned his face away, his gaze intent on something Zhongli couldn’t see. “Yeah. Home. You know, that place you come from. The place where you belong.”
“I don’t follow,” Zhongli said hesitantly.
“I wonder, Rex Lapis.” Childe glanced at him, his expression unreadable. “What would you do to me if I had succeeded in destroying your city?”
“There was never any risk that you would succeed. Nor was the destruction of Liyue Harbor your true goal.”
“But I would have let it happen.”
Zhongli did not have an answer for that. He knew it to be true, and yet there was something about Childe that made it easy to sweep all qualms aside. Childe was so vibrant, so fully, vitally alive , thrumming with eager aggression and the desire to sit aside the world, having defeated it all. For someone who had lived countless lifetimes and experienced the same patterns over and over again, it was new and refreshing to see a spirit unconquered.
“It was at my request that you came to be in Liyue, and there you did naught but accomplish exactly the task I had requested. As your fellow Harbinger said, I should be thanking you.”
“No thanks necessary.” Childe leaned on the crumbling railing, staring into the corrupted darkness. “I did it for the Tsaritsa, not for you.”
It was nothing but the truth, of course. So why did it feel so much like a rejection?
The first shadowed tower had been easy enough to reach and release. But in pursuit of the second, the team found themselves bogged down in a dizzying misama, the corruption brushing against their skin like scraps of dark silk.
Xiangling was the first to succumb, stumbling to her knees as her eyes slipped shut. Bennett caught her before she could hit the ground, but it was clear from the pallor to his skin and the unnatural brightness to his eyes that his collapse wasn’t far behind.
“Shit,” Lumine said, kneeling beside Bennett. “We have to go back.”
“But we haven’t cleansed the waypoint yet,” Bennett said, his voice a horrible rasp. “How are we going to get back here after?”
Zhongli craned his neck back to gauge how close they were to the waypoint. Not that it truly mattered, as Xiangling would have to be carried and Bennett wasn’t much better off.
“You take the kiddos back, Lumine,” Childe said. Bennett was so far gone he didn’t even make his usual protest at being called a kid. “Zhongli and I can make it to the waypoint and cleanse it.”
Zhongli took a moment to study Childe curiously. He seemed completely unaffected by the corruption all around them, a ruddy flush in his cheeks from the nearest fight and an eerie gleam in his usually lifeless eyes.
Zhongli and Lumine, being a deity and… whatever it was that Lumine was, were both hardier than the average human when confronted with this sort of foul magic. But Childe was mortal, as far as Zhongli had been able to tell. He should be on the ground beside Bennett, or at least showing some signs of fatigue and illness.
Intriguing. Zhongli resolved to find out more when the opportunity next presented itself.
“I agree,” he told Lumine. “Childe and I are capable of handling whatever dangers may lurk ahead. We will cleanse the waypoint and then return to you.”
Lumine hesitated, glancing from Childe to Zhongli and back. But a low groan from Bennett drew her attention, and she nodded, putting a hand on his shoulder. The familiar rush of magic from the activated ley line surrounded them, and in a half-second, they’d disappeared.
“C’mon,” Childe said, already making his way up the hill. “It’s not far.”
Zhongli followed him, watching the firm, lean lines of his back and shoulders, the long stride of his legs. Truly lovely, even in this suffocating darkness.
They reached the waypoint shortly and activated it without incident, but Childe looked oddly reluctant to return. He stood at the edge of the cliff, looking down at a stretch of ruin beneath them, his hair ruffled by a slight breeze that stirred the misama around them.
“You can go back,” he said absently. “I think I’ll poke around a little.”
“It’s dangerous,” Zhongli said.
Childe scoffed. “A fourteen year old kid could handle it.”
“Age has nothing to do with it. The corruption is damaging and suffocating to humans.”
“You’re right.” Childe glanced back at him. “No human could withstand this."
Before Zhongli could respond, Chile leaped off the cliff, the fringe on his glider fluttering as he floated down to the crumbling ruin below. Sighing, Zhongli readied his own glider and followed.
Childe’s fighting style was terrifyingly reckless and brutally effective. Zhongli came upon him fighting two Ruin Guards and cast a shield just in time to block a silo of red, glowing missiles.
“You need to be more careful,” he shouted at Childe, joining the fray with spear in hand. “You could have died.”
Childe huffed a soft laugh, his back nearly pressed to Zhongli’s as they stood in a defensive formation, surrounded by a shimmering golden shield with mechanical enemies approaching on all sides.
“You think I can die here? This is what I was made for.”
He pulled away, blue daggers flashing and crystalline arcs of water echoing his every movement. Zhongli pressed the attack as well, and the two of them fell into sync with each other as easily as stepping into a dance they had both practiced many times. They crossed the battlefield, close enough to defend each other but always deftly slipping out of the way of each other’s attacks.
It had never felt so effortless to fight at someone’s side. It was as though he could guess which way Childe would move, the trajectory of his arrows and his Hydro polearm—and Childe could read the same about him. At times Childe almost seemed to radiate the energy of an elemental being, so attuned to Hydro he was.
By the time they had thoroughly decimated the waves of monsters, they were both breathing hard and sweaty. Childe leaned against a crumbling wall and laughed, and for once it sounded like pure mirth with no bitterness mixed in.
Zhongli grinned back at him, exhilarated by the battle and the intimacy of fighting at Childe’s side.
“I’m not used to fighting with anyone else,” Childe admitted, smile fading. “Harbingers don’t really work together. And the other Fatui are my subordinates, not… not like you.”
“I understand,” Zhongli said. “Not even with my yakshas did I find such an easy rapport. Not with anyone since…” Since Azhdaha. “Since a friend I lost ages ago.”
“Must have been a good friend,” Childe said, with a slight lift to the corner of his mouth.
“He was.”
Back beneath the Dainichi Mikoshi, now extinguished to let a violet-hued gloom fall over Ekonomiya, the team made camp in the ruins of the once great structure.
Zhongli decided he was not overly fond of the subterranean depths. They reminded him too much of the ruins of Khaenri’ah, and the corruption felt distinctly Abyssal in nature. But there was some cheer to be found in their little group, huddled together around a small fire, where Xiangling was cooking something that smelled appealing and familiar, a scent that took Zhongli momentarily back to Liyue Harbor, where he would lean on the ledge of Wanmin Restaurant and compliment Chef Mao on his work.
Xiangling and Bennett seemed to be fully recovered, though Bennett still hovered cautiously over her, helping her carry water and steadying her when she stumbled on the uneven stone floor.
“Cute,” Childe murmured, directly in his ear, and Zhongli turned to him, surprised by the sudden proximity. Sitting on the stone bench beside Zhongli, Childe nodded at Bennett, who was draping his jacket over Xiangling’s shoulders.
“Young love,” Zhongli murmured back, just as quietly.
“Yeah.” Childe remained there, close enough that their shoulders were touching, pensively watching the fire. Zhongli said nothing, so as to avoid startling him into flight. He was always moving, dynamic and irrepressible, and it felt like a small privilege, to sit in stillness beside him.
After dinner, Childe conjured up streams of Hydro to wash the dishes. Bennett stoked the campfire with his Pyro abilities and their team sat together for a long while, their little fire a childish protest against the oppressive gloom all around them.
As Zhongli was laying out his bedroll, he noticed that Childe and Bennett had slipped away. Following the distinct and vibrant traces of elemental energy Childe left behind, Zhongli tracked them to an open expanse some distance away from camp, where they were walking together. Now and then Childe leaned down to pick up twigs and branches on the ground, the strange wood that burned hot and slow. Bennett carried the firewood in his arms.
“I just wanted to ask your advice, Mr. Tartaglia,” Bennett was saying.
“Please. Call me Childe.”
“Right.” Bennett stumbled over a loose rock and Childe caught him by the shoulders with lightning quick reflexes. “Uh, Mr. Childe. I wanted to ask about… well, Xiangling told me that back in Liyue Harbor you were… um, popular with ladies.”
“Ladies and gentlemen both,” Childe said cheerfully. He patted Bennett on the shoulder, not unkindly. “Don’t ask me for advice, Benny. I didn’t give a fuck about any of them. Not the way you do about her.”
“Oh,” Bennett said, and tripped again. Childe steadied him easily. “Well what would you do? If you did give a… a fuck, I mean.”
Childe laughed, and it was bitter and mirthless. “I got played, like an idiot. That’s why it’s smarter not to care.”
“But you’re so clever, Mr. Childe.” Bennett glanced at him. “I don’t know how anyone could get the best of you.”
“Let’s just say he has a lot of life experience.” Childe sighed. “C’mon. We’d better get back to camp.”
The two of them began to make their way back and Zhongli slipped away before his eavesdropping could be revealed.
What he’d heard startled him, and that night, lying in his bedroll, he couldn’t stop ruminating on it, wondering if he could possibly be the object of Childe’s affections. Wondering how it was he had never realized that Childe was the recipient of his own.
But of course he was. Childe was reckless and beautiful, by turns aloof, charming, cunning, and vicious. He was like no other human. How could Zhongli do anything but fall, when confronted with such a creature? He could easily live another six thousand years and still never see Childe’s equal.
He would not let Childe get away, not a second time. At least not without telling him how treasured he was. He resolved to speak to Childe as soon as he could, and then it would be for Childe to decide what he wanted.